The English government and the Bank of England believe that a need for a CBDC is likely to arise in the future.
The Bank of England (BoE) is recruiting academics for its central bank digital currency (CBDC) advisory group. BoE announced on Wednesday that it was working with His Majesty’s Treasury to create a CBDC Academic Advisory Group (AAG) as it moves into the design phase of the digital pound.
The advisory group is expected to draw experts from relevant fields such as monetary policy, finance, competition economics, industrial organization, behavioral science, law, innovation theory, marketing, and business. According to the bank’s website, applications are open until September 3, 2023.
BoE states that the AAG will serve as a “platform for knowledge exchange and research collaboration, and as a multidisciplinary group, it will provide a wide-ranging and nuanced view on the key questions on CBDCs”. The group is also expected to “encourage diverse ideas, open debate and perspectives that challenge prevailing wisdom in relation to the digital pound.”
According to the bank, the objective of the design phase is to “develop a comprehensive and conceptual architecture, and to carry out experimentation and proofs of concept, in collaboration with private sector innovators, to inform the development of our potential architecture and to build both the Bank’s and the private sector’s digital currency technology know-how.” Hence the need for a multidisciplinary group of academics to offer insights into the design process. The composition of the AAG is expected to change to reflect the various issues being discussed and the stages of the phase. As such, the BoE and HM Treasury may make more calls for interest in the future.
The English government and the Bank of England believe that a need for a CBDC is likely to arise in the future. A consultation on the feasibility of a digital pound was launched in February and closed in June. BoE is now set to begin the experimentation and design phase which is reportedly expected to run over two years.
The bank is also calling for applications from those seeking to join its CBDC engagement forum. The purpose of the forum is to help the institution “understand the practical challenges of designing, implementing and operating a CBDC”. The deadline for applications is September 3, 2023. In addition, the bank has asked stakeholders to provide information on use cases for offline payments and potential merchant requirements that need to be reflected in the CBDC design.
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